Hope
by Qu-ko
Summary: They continue to challenge her time after time, and one day, Rosa dares to ask them for a reason why. [A Shadow Triad theory one-shot, with lots of sads]


**A/N:** Some crazy shit I wrote late at night. It's based on that one heart-wrenching Pixiv manga in which a theory is proposed about the Shadow Triad that I find... very interesting, to say the least. So I wrote about it. The format is made of fuckery, sorry.

Oh, and it's not porn. Ha!

* * *

"Why do you keep fighting me?"

Fathomless grey eyes watch another pawniard fall to its knees and fold to the ground, much like its two brethren before it. They watch, and do not react, as the girl appeals to them with a tone of uncertainty and an earnest expression. Their unspoken response has been said so many times that it almost no longer needs to be declared: _We are the royal servants of Lord Ghetsis, and his will be done come hell or high water._

"Team Plasma is gone for good," Rosa says, "and besides that... what good is this doing? What will defeating me accomplish?"

They answer in turns, visages barely budging as they do so.

"To Lord Ghetsis, you are nothing but evil."

"As long as you exist, he will never recover."

"We are carrying out Lord Ghetsis' will in his stead."

She looks as if she is going to cry. She probably is, Rosa thinks, if she isn't careful. "He's completely helpless now. He can't do any evil things anymore! You three should know that better than anyone else! So why are you trying to drag things out like this?"

"Because we exist only to fight for Lord Ghetsis." One voice pauses, and an identical one resumes without missing a beat, "He saved our life. He is special."

* * *

_He had hope. It was all he had._

_Scratch. Scratch. Scr-scratch._

_His nails, once sharp, were worn to the quick and bleeding, but he knew he couldn't stop. Death itself was chasing him; he could not see it, but he could feel it, and if he stopped, it would surely settle in. He extended his claw and continued to pull his weight along._

_The next block over... Surely the next block over, he would find a new home. Rain struck him like little wet missiles, more keenly than he'd ever thought possible even to a blind creature like himself._

_Yesterday, he had been inside a house with a roof. There had been an unhappy man and an unhappy woman there, hovering over him even more relentless than the rain. They hated the things he did, and they hated him, but most of all, they hated their baby._

_The baby would be everywhere in the house, screaming incessantly and pulling his black mane. Mostly, it just screamed. It screamed, and it screamed._

_It made him furious. The baby pulled at him, and he began to pull back._

_Unable to kick out the baby, the unhappy man and the unhappy woman kicked out their pokemon instead. The world spun around him, and it hadn't been until he hit the pavement, only long enough for his limbs to refuse to obey and his lungs to forget to work that he realized he'd been literally thrown from the doorstep by a sharp kick to the side. It wasn't until even later that he realized the impact must have broken a rib, because it hurt to breathe after a while._

_The rain fell. The door slammed behind them._

_That was a week ago._

_He had to find a new home. He would find a new home, with babies that didn't scream, and men and women that weren't unhappy. Except for the falling of drops onto drenched streets, the city was silent._

_Scratch. Scr-scratch. Scr-scr-scratch._

_"Look at this..."_

_Scratch._

_"These wounds... did someone do this to you?"_

_He stopped dragging himself, lifting his head with the last vestige of effort in his body. He could not see the face of the boy who spoke so softly to him, but in his mind's eye... Yes, he imagined it was very beautiful._

_"You know, I'm alone like you. Let me help you... Don't be scared."_

_Warm hands fell around his back, and he felt the boy's smile pressed against the fur of his neck. His luck had changed, just a little._

* * *

"Why? What's so special about him? What does he have that other people don't?!"

The hasty remark makes them visibly tense, their shoulders trembling like the strings of a guitar. Rosa knows they could answer in tandem; probably want to answer in tandem. But they don't. The hivemind continues to speak separately, just to fool with her. Just like Ghetsis fooled with people: with a convincing pretense.

"Do you want to know?" asks the one on the left.

"I do," she answers, full of the conviction that allowed her to have a hand in controlling the legendary dragons of Unova. "I want to know. Tell me everything."

For once, they see reason to deny her request, and she knows it must have nothing to do with what Ghetsis would want. For once, it is a personal matter. For once, they find it in themselves to put devotion and love over pure obedience and loyalty.

"It is a long story," one says, in a tone that indicates it would be a warning in any other case. But Rosa doesn't concede any ground, just stands with her lucario mimicking her air of determination.

"I have time."

What genuinely surprises her is when the three of them relax, more than she thinks she's ever seen them do before. They're no longer ready to jump at a moment's notice. Then, after a very long silence, "It is because of a wish we made, when Lord Ghetsis saved us from death's door."

* * *

_"That thing looks like it could keel over and die any minute! Don't tell me you decided to give it a beating just to take it all out on someone else? That's disgusting!"_

_The older boy sounded concerned, at first, but there was a shard of ice in his tone that he couldn't possibly miss. He snapped his lower jaw impatiently in a biting motion, at the same time the defensive, panicky response came._

_"No! I wouldn't!"_

_"You little freak. Why would you do that to a helpless pokemon?! How would you like it if someone did it to you, huh?!"_

_A hand clamped onto the boy's arm, slamming him against the wall and looming over him, then rearing his fist back. It was clenched so tightly that the little pokemon could hear the muscles in his wrist creaking in protest._

_"Gra! Grauu! Graoooooou!"_

_As he'd expected, the attention of the three boys cornering his fellow loner flew to him. Sharp ice was now threatening him instead._

_That was the way it should have been, he thought, even as the three circled the pokemon and punted him around like a sports ball, reminiscent of what had happened seven days earlier. But pokemon protected their trainers. They got hurt, but they protected them, and then both of them would be happy._

_"No! Deino!"_

_Even as he murmured to himself, over and over again while cradling the bruised and bleeding body of the tiny dragon, that he would never forgive them, he still had hope._

_What he never accepted was that the boy himself didn't._

_Time went on, and hope went on._

* * *

The entire story, as it turns out, is not long, just slow and calculated in the way it is told. By the end, Rosa feels her stomach sink low, and tears prick at her. The trio's eyes dart off to the side, in a way that almost seems avoidant.

"It's fine if you don't believe us. It doesn't matter either way."

It's very like them to say that. Rosa remembers, though, that they haven't ever lied. They've omitted facts, and done despicable dirty work in the name of Team Plasma — of Ghetsis' Team Plasma — but they've never lied to her face. She wonders briefly if they might be incapable of it, somehow.

"You haven't lied to me yet," she reiterates aloud, "so I believe it. But—"

* * *

_He was in a foul mood when he walked in the door. Hydreigon could see — with a pair of eyes now, not just ears or skin — that his boy, now a man, had taken a blow to his pride. Like a large growlithe puppy, they rose from their place resting his three heads on the circular rug to float happily over._

_But there was no greeting, no comfort or love to be had from him. Not now, maybe not ever again. His reserve was dried up with the events of the day. He balled his fists up, purposefully crossed the room, and slammed them down so hard on his desk surface that he made himself wince with the force of the impact, knocking over the inkwell of the quill pen and spilling it all over a stack of papers in the process. He didn't care; he just reared his hands up and slammed them down again and again with shout after shout until he was completely out of breath._

_"I couldn't become the hero," he rasped, a horrified snarl twisting his features. "Not with this broken body... Why, why am I not good enough—?!"_

_This boy-now-man, who had succeeded at every other pursuit he ever set out for, had failed so horribly at the one thing it seemed he really, truly _wanted_ to do. All the science, all the medicine, all the genetics and lab work and written hypotheses were just emotionless pasttimes. What good did they do him, anyway? Altering the genetic code of pokemon? Who cared about that?_

_But Hydreigon cared. Even if no one else did. Even if the man himself didn't._

_"People are ugly, foolish creatures... All they're good for is acting on their insolent, selfish nature! All they do is act on their own desires, damn anyone else who gets in their way! This world will only engender more ugly, foolish people in the end! So why, why, why, why, why—!"_

_It was all they could do to care. Maybe if they cared enough, the boy would look at them and smile, for once._

_If they could only be useful..._

* * *

She stomps a foot against the ground firmly. "But look at all the things you've done in the name of your ideal. What about the people who have done nothing wrong that you made suffer? What about the people who you manipulated and led astray, who believed you were doing the right thing?! You're even hurting—"

Their expressions remain still all the while. Rosa's voice cracks with frustration, and she forgets her previous resolve not to cry in front of dangerous people who still consider her an enemy.

"You're even hurting _yourself,_ pretending you don't have a heart at all just to get done what you think you need to do for him! All this meaningless suffering, and for what?!"

"If we can only grant Lord Ghetsis' wish—"

"It is for that purpose alone."

"That is why no matter how many people must suffer because of us—"

"It is never meaningless."

"We do not suffer at all."

Rosa spreads her feet to anchor her weight, and curls her fists so tightly that she feels her nails piercing the skin of her palm. It's only a fraction of what she feels right now.

"I don't believe that!" she cries, voice wavering with emotion. "I saw that hydreigon, in the Giant Chasm... I saw the life orb it held. I saw how every attack took another piece of its life, another piece of itself, just to fight for Ghetsis. And yet, you didn't even—" a breath that comes out more like a sob, "—you didn't even see him _smile_ at your pain, not the way I did!"

"Make no mistake."

"Even if we are nothing but slaves to him—"

"If Lord Ghetsis wishes it, we exist to fulfill that wish."

"We've pledged our heart and our body to him—"

"Even if it means giving them up or destroying them."

"He gave weak ones, like us, a place to be."

Rosa's lucario leaps back, startled and back in its battle mindset, when one of the pawniard it has already defeated begins to rise on wobbly appendages and regain its bearings. They both know it is already as good as defeated, and they both know that it will try anyway.

"However much suffering we have to cause—"

"However much blood we have to spill—"

"We will never stop fighting for Lord Ghetsis!"

It begins to gather the last of its energy into a focus blast. Rosa can see the same desperation in it that was present in the hydreigon willing to shed its own blood and body for its trainer, so many months ago.

She ducks her head and whispers, "Lucario, aura sphere." As the other pokemon falls shortly thereafter, she hides her eyes behind her visor, watching her act of necessary evil with carefully concealed sympathy.

* * *

_We wished._

_We wished we were human, too. We wished we could speak in human words, so he would understand just what we really wanted. If we could be human, we could do so much more for him._

_Lord Ghetsis... If he is to become a great king, he needed loyal retainers. We wanted to be there for him. We wanted to be by his side, no matter what path he goes down in the end, or what our fates might be._

_We wished this, truly. We wish..._

* * *

"Perhaps," one of them says; at this point, Rosa has long since stopped keeping track of which one is speaking at any given moment, "we truly can't be his strength, the way he needs us to be."

"You can!" she interjects quickly, as it looks like they are about to leap into obscurity again. "If you love him that much, you can do it. If it isn't power he needs, then I'm sure you can be whatever else it is. I can't forgive what Team Plasma has done under his direction," Lucario offers her a friendly paw, which she rubs idly between her fingers, "but I think you can be something important to him without having to fight."

In a deep, throaty voice, one says, "Why would you say that?" Rosa glances up, her expression falling. "We picked up Lord Ghetsis' ambition when he lost his will, and vowed never to forgive the people who have ruined him. We have tried to challenge you until we could defeat you, but we don't know what else could possibly satisfy him!"

It is the first real, genuine emotion she has ever seen them express. All at once, the three of the same mind are gripped by it, and she can almost reach out and touch the bemusement. She realizes they are everything like the hydreigon that haunts her memory.

"Then, tell you what. Next time we battle... let's not do it to satisfy any ambition or goal, but to have fun and get to know each other as people. If you just do it little by little, I'm sure you can figure out eventually what you can do." Although she feels her throat closing with tears, Rosa continues on admirably, proud of the way she doesn't choke on her words again. "So until then, you can take it all out on me until someday you find your answer. Okay?"

Judging from their silence, they don't understand. Judging from the renewed stiffness of their bodies, they want to flee, or attack her, right this second. Adding to the list of firsts, she's never seen them as completely paralyzed and aimless as they are in this moment. Suddenly, as she smiles, their eyebrows fall, and a layer of mist like glass slickens their eyes.

"Let's battle again, okay?"

When they disappear in a blink, somewhat belatedly, she keeps smiling, her lucario standing faithfully by her side. They, too, return faithfully to his side, for today. Whether it is a deliberate action on her part or not, seeing the kindness of the young boy on the face of the young girl rekindles a hope they had almost forgotten existed.

* * *

_We wish someday would come soon._


End file.
